On the go and no time to finish that story right now? Your News is the place for you to save content to read later from any device. Register with us and content you save will appear here so you can access them to read later.

Time is fast running out to iron out all the issues with Overseer, writes Federated Farmers North Otago Dairy Chair Jared Ross.

Key Otago Regional Council Water Plan nitrogen leaching rules take effect in April 2020 and your attention is needed immediately.

A recent meeting on the Otago water plan drew a sizeable crowd, who picked a number of gaping holes in the regulation as they tried to understand the real impact on their business beyond April 1, 2020.

Many of these shortcomings relate to the hard numbers based on Overseer contained with the Otago water plan.

Issues around Overseer were confirmed in a recent report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who made a number of recommendations including a comprehensive evaluation of the farm nutrient-use tool, indicating peer review and a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis to be completed for the programme.

The change in the Government and signals of further Resource Management Act reform mean we are as close as ever to the pointy end of the process as we have been.

The federation has quality policy staff who are well positioned to challenge the workability of council regulation, but the best outcomes will eventuate if we all face this together in a proactive and constructive manner, and encourage strong cohesion with other stakeholders.